It is already back and this new series is already great. Isy Suttie is the only contestant that is an unknown to me, but that probably says more about how much my feed has become UK panel shows.

“Tom Hardy the rapper” is a headline that induces a bit of acid reflux at first glance. I know him as a late 40’s British actor who has a decade and change worth of films I’ve mostly enjoyed. But has he merely adopted the dark or was he was born in it? Turns out he has been rapping since he was a teenager, but then the acting took off?

I was still going to skip it, but caught a long drive up and back to DC last weekend and gave it a spin. I don’t know how much he is actually contributing to what I enjoyed, but the Czarface production, rapping, and all of the features left me questioning my initial reaction. It is good and fun and worth a try. Its actually pretty good and leads down a whole Czarface rabbit hole I am less familiar with.

New entries in the 26 in 26 challenge this week. We are so ahead on the challenge and I am so behind on the write ups. We ate at these two back in April [grimace emoji].

Ciao Capri

We are not the target demographic for Ciao Capri, it tends to skew much older than us. But it is the neighborhood restaurant we pass by to head to other places for ten years running. So the four of us popped and had a nice meal. The atmosphere doesn’t do enough to whisk you away from the strip mall exterior, but the food is a very traditional Italian menu and solid.

L’Opossum

When we started the ABC challenge in 2025 L’Opossum was high on the list, but it turns out there are way too many great letter “L” restaurants in Richmond. We finally got to it this year it was worth the wait. Fine dining with character, humor, and personality. The food mainly classical French with their own twist and delicious.

There is an awesome new Ghost in the Shell show! That was exciting news to me recently shared by a friend at coffee. I was a fan of the original movie, had a poster even, and of the Stand Alone Complex series in the early 2000’s. But beyond that there hasn’t been much new to match my enthusiasm.

On top of that it is animated by Science SARU, of Dandadan^ and many other great shows fame. Short episodes, beautifully animated action, and plenty of weird humor in between. Toss in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 coming this fall and Neuromancer coming in early 2027 and its a great time to be a fan of the genre.

^Do yourself a favor and enjoy the Dandadan theme song

I’ve been on a gradual journey to fill my kitchen with high quality, as close to forever tools since I bought my first house 20 years ago. There are a ton of outlets keen to give you a recommendation. But my go to, all the way back to the start (via PBS), has been America’s Test Kitchen. This video is a great summary of their picks that have stood the test of time. And it turns out I own some and can confirm:

• Victorinox Fibrox Chef’s Knife – My first actual chef’s knife I bought w/ purpose. I have two others I rotate through now, but this one is still a workhorse.
• OXO Locking Tongs – I own them in two sizes and they just do their job. No slipping, no accidently unlocking when you don’t want them to.
• Technivorm Moccamaster – This was a last year replacement for what we thought was a killer coffee maker. Nope! The Moccamaster is pricy, but essentially automated pour over quality coffee.
• RSVP International Colander – New purchase based on this video. What it replaced in our kitchen looked a lot like the one they dragged in the video.

2026 has unintentionally turned into a year of reading books from Joe Abercrombie. Historically this has been a losing formula for me. I read one book from an author, get excited, another, maybe another, and then I run out of steam. Not the case here, I am loving this run.

The Devils Trilogy

The first book in a new historical fantasy series that came out last year and I loved it. Think Suicide Squad, but a band of monsters employed by the Pope in 17th century Europe. I started here, but the next book isn’t coming till 2027, so I dug into his more recent work.

The Age of Madness Trilogy

A fantasy series that released from 2019 to 2023. It picks up a generation after the First Law books. Fantasy world reckoning with industrialization and capitalism. An excellent series, but I made the mistake of reading it out of order. Still a great story, but now the prior series is reading a bit like a prequel.

The First Law Trilogy

I should have started here, but my cautious wavering on author deep dives got the best of me. The series came out between 2006 and 2008, and was his first work. Turns out I was 100% wrong. Start here and enjoy. Traditional fantasy that borrows and also introduces new ideas. Excellent characters and now I know which ones will be merely history or feature prominently in Age of Madness.

Summer is absolutely flying by. We have been busy traveling, working on projects, and just living life. I’m working on a Toronto Travel Log, and we are way ahead on the 26 in 26, but I am way behind on the write ups. In the mean time I’ll share a few videos:

I don’t think this game has any right to knock another off my 50 best of the 2020’s, but boy oh boy does it have it’s hooks in me. Its the rare city simulator that can evoke my teenage nostalgia for 1993’s Sim City 2000. Timberborn does so with a three pronged approach:

• Liquid physics: This is the novel feature it brings to the genre. Water has volume and flow that can be mastered or failed to feed, power, and grow your town.
• Beavers! The theme, design, and art just work for me. The tech designs made from natural materials is a rich palette to for the developers to play with.
• Balance: The learning, progression, and difficulty curves are well refined. Most of the tech tree feels intuitive. Meaning I’m not watching YouTube videos every 5 mins to play it. It leads to a loop where I understand the problem or goal and have the tools I need to creatively solve them.

That has all led to some late nights in front of my PC. Jumping from one challenge or ambition to another. All credit to the game that can see me crawling into bed at 1 am and working through how I will revamp my power infrastructure for the 30 mins that follow. The answer is diversification and batteries to weather worst case scenarios.

I guess when I love a show, I’ll just keep reminding anyone that visits here every time a new season drops. Two episodes of season 8 are out, Dropout is the best use of your streaming dollars, and there are a whole gang of other shows worth watching there too:

• Make Some Noise s4 (trailer) just wrapped is in full stride.

• Parlor Room (trailer) for board games with funny people.

• Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (trailer) is a weird weird little treat.

• Um, Actually (trailer) tournament of champions is a fun twist.

Vince Staples newest album is a departure from the past decade of music he has released. At least in it’s production and instrumentation. The lyrics and sprit of his style persist at the core, but this is a distinctly new sound and I dig it.

I loathed the early 2000’s era of music. While Limp Bizkit was topping the charts, I retreated into a backpack rap cocoon. That is not damning of all rap production that strays into other genres, but it does create a high bar for me at least. There have been plenty of albums that easily clear it though, notably:

• Big Boi Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors (2012) – Big Boi
• Sour Soul (2015) – Ghostface + BadBadNotGood

Cry Baby fits nicely with these high jumpers and I find myself coming back to it over and over again.

New entries in the 26 restaurants in 2026 challenge this week.

Beauvine Burger Concept

“What’s do you want for dinner?” in our house is regularly met by our kids with burgers, pizza, or BBQ. Where we live pizza and BBQ have great options, but burgers are an under served category. Trekking into the city opens up more options and maybe Beauvine should be at the top of that heap now. Tucked into the Main St. + Fan strip of restaurants, they offer up the bare basics to the lesser traveled artisanal path. All of it was great and pairs well with the duck fat fries.

Smokestack Pizza

The order stand outs at Smokestack probably go location, activities, and then the food. Seated next to the canal walk, at the foot of downtown Richmond, and in view of some great murals is really hard to beat. We are a pickleball family, but appreciate and will likely go back to try out Padel. Finally the food and drink. It was just OK pizza and cold beers, nothing to write off, but not worthy of a return on that alone. That said if we go back to play, the pizza and beer will hit the spot.

The wilderness post Desus & Mero has been long and dull. The my world needed their funny and quick takes on the week in news, sports, and general bullshit. Mero hit his stride with Victory Light, but the closer it got to long form talk radio the less potent it became. Desus just started up a new channel and it is a return to form. 20 minutes of Julia and staff tossing him absurd stories from the headlines and him reacting with cutting jokes. Worth a watch every week.

I got a wild hair to watch the first season of Twin Peaks this Spring. I know it as cultural point of reference or as a heavy influence that has snowballed into countless shows, movies, and videogames. But I don’t actually know anything about the show. I was 9 when it originally aired.

My short book report is that its a tough watch in 2026. But also I that couldn’t stop watching it. Visually it is a product of its time, but an interesting lens into televisions visual language in the late 80s. Fast paced editing for the shrinking attention span in the 2020’s has ruined my ability to watch some older shows. E.g., Why are we holding camera on that person’s shoe as they get out of a car for so freaking long.

It takes large story and directorial swings between soap opera, creepy mystery, straight faced weird humor, or even just straight weirdness. I had to ask a few friends if all of that was intentional or just how it was. Basically are they in on it or am I just laughing at occasional bad acting or directing choices. The answer was both, but more that they are in on the joke with intention.

What all of that does is showcase how many new things Twin Peaks was doing. Mashing up genres. Showing casing legit scary and strange stuff on network television. Inspiring a generation of writers and directors to take what it offered and spin it forward. One easy example is my now deeper appreciation for what Alan Wake 2 (Best of #33) was paying homage to three years ago.

I don’t recall when I became aware of the Disney Research Hub channel, but it was certainly before everyone laughed for a day at Olaf on the Nvidia stage. Prior to that I’d already watched a far more technical video on him on their Hub.

To what is actually on offer, it is an unassuming set of tech forward videos. Delivered with flat narration and focused on sharing what has been accomplished, but also how. Think short summary of a white paper as a video. There is a lot of focus on machine learning, robotics, and visual computing. All great and generally not over my head in a short format.

Best Games of the 2020’s is back after a bit of a gaming drought this year. While a good, but unfortunately flawed sequel leaves the list.

Saros(2026) goes on at 41

Every fourth game I play these days is a rogue like. What sets the good ones apart is a compelling game loop or a narrative doled out in small plates that leave you wanting more. If you are Hades you nail both and make one of the best games in the last 20 years. If you are Saros, you offer up novel combat and I skip your cut scenes.

The addictive loop Saros offers is a bullet hell in 3D^. You are dodging, parrying, and blocking while a billion beams, orbs, and explosions come at you. All while throwing damage back out. When you full drift with Saros there isn’t a feeling like it. Its like Neo seeing the matrix. Until you block instead of parry the red orbs, break your combo, and mutter a little “dammit” into your living room.

^New to me, but not to those that played Returnal the last game from the same developer.

Toss challenging boss fights into that mix and you get an interesting test to bookend every stage. Death has a low barrier and is a chance to progress your stats and abilities, before going back at it again.

Finally the story. It is very hard sci-fi, plus time travel, plus psycho thriller. It is all a little too complicated and I didn’t with any of the character or their motivations. The main character wants to save a person he loves and needs to fight aliens to do it? Great, “X to skip” and put me in coach!

God of War Ragnarök (2022) was a very good sequel, but the game it followed from 2018 was maybe a perfect modernization of the series. 4 years later it tried to eclipse the story and gameplay. It got close, but all it seemed to have in the bag was a lot of “more”, not enough “new”.

The easy path to discovering new music has become social media. Which sucks, for so many reasons. It is worth finding your own good sources, for many more reasons. But it’s hard to deny when a jam rolls across my algorithm.

That was the case The Velveteers. A three member rock group from Colorado. A pro skater I follow liked a reel of the song above. I pulled the thread and ended listening to their 2025 album “A Million Knives” on repeat for the past few weeks.

I’ve been in a diorama, mini, and painting rut in 2026. I have a mid-progress project just collecting dust on my hobby bench. Watching YouTube channels dedicated to the craft can often be the spark that breaks the cycle. Credit goes to North of the Border if it is the straw that breaks that camels back this weekend. I’ve been watching his channel on and off for a few years now. But this shark pirate caught me up with just how far along his skills have come.

New entries in the 26 restaurants in 2026 challenge this week.

Pizza Bones

Tasty wood fired pizza and cold beers in an old service station in Church Hill. That is as simple as it gets. The menu and topping options keep that simplicity and that is maybe our only knock against it. Worthy of a stop in for a meal if you are in that part of town, but for us we wouldn’t pass Zorch to get to it.

The Brooklyn

There are so many established restaurants in Richmond that it is rare for our challenge to bring us to a new one. This one opened late last year in Scott’s Addition and we were wrapping up the ABCs, but marked it for this year. We were glad we did. We had great cocktails, the pork chop, and the lamb skewers.

I pick and choose my Bullseye listens based on the guest and this was an easy one. Jesse Thorn is a great interviewer. Over my ten years of podcasting I modeled some of my skill set on his. A pale comparison for sure, but I’ll note he is especially skilled at riffing with fellow funny people like Griffin. The Stowaway (Griffin’s book) is sitting next to a pile of comics I need to read, but when I get to it I’ll report back.